When Spaceballs premiered in 1987, four years after Return of the Jedi and with no other Star Wars films on the horizon, critics said director-writer-star Mel Brooks had waited too long to make it and that Lucas's trilogy was too easy a target. Audiences seemed to agree - the film only did moderate box office, taking just $38m on its US run (with a reported budget of $22m) and finishing 31st in the list of hits for that year. However, it subsequently became a cult favourite on video, Laserdisc and DVD, and was popular enough to receive the full-blown 25th Anniversary treatment (complete with Mel Brooks commentary) on Blu-Ray in 2012.

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Needless to say, Spaceballs wasn't Mel Brooks's first foray into parody - he had enjoyed enormous success with his previous films and had already targeted Westerns (Blazing Saddles), horror movies (Young Frankenstein), silent movies (Silent Movie), Hitchcock thrillers (High Anxiety) and historical epics (A History of the World: Part 1). However, by 1987, he hadn't directed a film in six years - Spaceballs represented a comeback.

The plot is heavily derived from the first Star Wars movie, but it's worth noting that it does just about stand on its own, rather than serving purely as an excuse to serve up gags. Opening on "Chapter Eleven" (a nice joke about bankruptcy), a familiar title crawl informs us that Planet Spaceball, led by President Skroob (Mel Brooks) has used up all of its air and plans to steal the air from the Planet Druidia, led by King Roland (Dick Van Patten). In order to secure Roland's co-operation, Skroob sends Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) and the gigantic spaceship Spaceball One to kidnap Roland's daughter, Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga), who is about to be married off to the narcoleptic Prince Valium (Jim J Bullock).

However, Princess Vespa has other ideas, so she flees her own wedding, with Droid of Honour Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers) in tow. In desperation, Roland offers mercenary Lone Starr (Bill Pullman, in his first starring role and only his second big screen appearance) and his furry Mawg ("Half man, half dog - I'm my own best friend!") sidekick Barf (John Candy) a million space bucks if he'll retrieve Vespa and protect her from Dark Helmet. Lone Starr readily accepts, as he's heavily in debt to repulsive mobster Pizza the Hut (voiced by Brooks regular Dom DeLuise). Along the way, the group crash land on a desert planet where they encounter a diminutive golden sage named Yoghurt (Mel Brooks again), who teaches Lone Starr the ways of The Schwartz.

Naturally, the film features many direct lifts from Star Wars, not just in the character likenesses, but also specific scenes. To do so, Brooks personally sought and obtained full permission from George Lucas to parody whatever he wanted, but with one condition: that no merchandising from the film would ever be produced. (According to Brooks, Lucas quite rightly pointed out that the action figures would look too similar). At any rate, this led to one of the film's best running gags - after Yoghurt reveals that he and the Dinks (basically the Jawas, mixed with The Wizard of Oz's Munchkins) produce all the merchandising ("Where the real money from the movie is made!"), items of Spaceballs merchandise pop up repeatedly throughout the film, including a Spaceballs bed sheet, toilet paper and a flame-thrower ("The kids love that one!"), as well as Dark Helmet getting caught playing with his Spaceballs dolls.

One of the best direct lifts from Star Wars occurs right at the beginning of the film, in a parody of the opening shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer. In a side-on wide shot, the camera pans along the side of Spaceball One, revealing various odd shapes on the ship, for a full minute and a half, finally ending on the bumper sticker: "We brake for no-one."

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There are several other great scenes that directly parody similar sequences in Star Wars. The best examples include: Dark Helmet using the Schwartz to crush his henchmen's balls (another great running gag has everyone instinctively covering their crotches when Dark Helmet is angry); the jump into hyper-space, with Spaceball One achieving Ludicrous Speed; the corridor laser shoot-out (in which Barf ingeniously finds a way to re-direct the laser blasts with some piping); and the light-sabre duel between Dark Helmet and Lone Starr ("Lone Starr, I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate").

The one thing that strikes you when rewatching Spaceballs is the sheer number of gags in every scene, with Brooks maintaining a frenetic juggling act that involves sight gags, verbal gags, subtle references, character comedy, physical material (pratfalls and so on), throwaway lines, clever word play, highbrow jokes (there's even a reference to Kafka) and lowbrow crudity (there is a certain guilty pleasure in all the swearing), not to mention the larger comic set-pieces. With such a high volume of comic material, it's inevitable that some jokes will fall flat, but you're also guaranteed a solid laugh on a regular basis.

Some of the jokes are truly inspired. Personal favourites include: Princess Vespa's Leia-like hair-do turning out to be a pair of headphones; Darth Helmet and Chief Officer Colonel Sandurz (George Wyner) indulging in a verbal routine worthy of Abbott & Costello while watching the Spaceballs VHS to find out where Lone Starr is ("What happened to then?" "We passed then." "When? "Just now. We're at now now"); the cut to giant combs being dragged across the sand after an order to comb the desert ("Sir, are we being too literal?"); the reveal that Barf is actually short for Barfolomew (and the look of pride on John Candy's face as he says this); and Brooks's delivery of the line "Like my raincoat!" after President Skroob is told that the self-destruct sequence is irreversible.

Another great touch is that many of these gags work on multiple levels. For example, the joke about Dark Helmet discovering that he is "surrounded by Assholes" after it turns out that most of the soldiers have the same surname ("He's an Asshole too - Gunner's mate First Class Philip Asshole") works as a crude verbal joke and a funny back-and-forth routine, but it's also a joke about in-breeding (two of the Assholes are cross-eyed) - or, if you like, cloning - that explains why none of the bad guys can shoot straight.

Brooks also throws in a couple of great swipes at other classic sci-fi movies, including Star Trek (a good transporter gag and a running gag about the Vulcan Neck Pinch), Transformers (Spaceball One transforms into a giant robot maid to hoover up Druidia's air - this actually makes Spaceballs look quite prescient in the wake of Bay's movies); Planet of the Apes (the Statue of Liberty-like robot maid head lands on a beach, causing an ape to remark "S**t. There goes the planet...") and, of course, the film's best and most famous joke, with John Hurt (as John Hurt) giving birth to an alien that sings "Hello, Mah Baby" like Michigan J Frog in the Warner Bros cartoon.

Finally, the film contains many elements that had become Mel Brooks trademarks, most notably the frequent fourth wall breaks, as well as repeatedly referring to the movie within the movie or commenting on the movie-making process, such as Candy remarking "Nice dissolve" on a fade to the burning sun, or Dark Helmet injuring the sound recordist during the light sabre duel. He even manages to work in cameo appearances for all his previous movies during the VHS scene.

In a similar joke, the possibility of a sequel is raised within the movie when Yoghurt says: "God willing, we'll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money." A planned sequel (Moranis said he'd discussed making Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2) never came to pass, but the film did spawn a spin-off animated series in 2008.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Brooks has recently hinted at the possibility of a sequel to cash in on the new Star Wars films, though it would be dependent on coaxing Rick Moranis out of retirement, especially since co-stars John Candy, Joan Rivers and Dom DeLuise have all died. Here's hoping Brooks gets his wish - after all, it couldn't be any worse than The Phantom Menace.